Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Stephen Pound & the G Spot

I spent an hour this afternoon chairing a Question Time panel for the British Youth Council conference. Taking part were Stephen Pound, Simon Hughes, Chloe Smith and Green MEP Jean Lambert. About 180 16-18 year olds were attending, and a feisty lot they were too.

Stephen Pound didn't get off to a good start because he was the only panel member to speak against the idea of votes for 16 year olds. But he quickly recovered in his next answer on the cuts and delivered quite the most unashamedly populist bit of rabble rousing I've heard since, well, the last one I did myself. Having almost got a standing ovation and whipped up the audience into a frenzy he was then brought down to earth when I delivered a line which got a bigger laugh than he did (and that's quite difficult to achieve, let me tell you). I looked straight at the audience and said in the most deadpan style I could conjure up...

And that ladies and gentlemen, was Mr Stephen Pound, whose latest book "Howto Whip up An Audience By Finding Its G Spot" is on sale outside....

Judging by the audience reaction there would be quite a few purchasers if Mr P was ever to put pen to paper...

You seem to have fallen into the Labour trap. By referring to 'The Cuts' they hope to make the clearing up of their shameful legacy seem like an ideological choice to deprive the public of things Labour would somehow magically keep. Auntie does it too but far more knowingly.

Steven Pound is one of the most odious creeps that sold their souls to the devil in their defence and adulation of Brown and his ilk in the last Labour government. Long may he and his kind remain in opposition.

At least Stephen Pound did not start of by pandering to the idea that 16-year old should have the vote. In that he was honest and the other 3 were not. Does the voting age move with the age of consent?

Otherwise Pound - jolly old Mr. Punch - did his usual avuncular act it seems. He and Vince Cable are good at that sort of thing.

You were brilliant at the convention. Thank you very much for coming. You livened it up a lot!! I was the one asking the question about us all paying VAT and other related taxes to Stephen Pound when he made a comment about only over 18's paying tax.

Just letting "Local Member" know that the British Youth Council is no longer Government funded - apart from the occasion programme grant from the then DSCF (like many charities). It is an incorporated independent Charity funded in the main by member subscriptions, charitable donations and self-generated consultancy income.

Also, it is a lot less "political" in a party sense that it was back in the Mandelson era. I for one am a Conservative, and as all trustees are elected by the membership I'm not sure if it was full of communists that i'd ever have got elected!